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no, no, they're not grasshoppers........glasshoppers please Fuji was immortalised by Hokusai the great C18 Japanese printmaker - so yes, your chest may well also stand a good chance of being from Japan, originally. The art of lacquering was very skilled (and toxic) and apparently goes back as far as 9000 years bp (yes bp, never ever say ad or bc - very non academic) - and in view of its origins, was colloquially called 'japaning', in Europe.You're probably right m, nigh on impossible to patch repair lacquer, even if you cud find the skilled labour - but no matter how sickly looking always love your piece. I'm a great fan of these C19 pieces, and will swop you a lump of glass any day for the cabinet.

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That should be interesting, Astrid! I've got a small collection of shleiergraphit bits - but I find them impossible to display all together - it just ends up looking wishy-washy!

Ummmm, John.... re. the early big textured Mdina bottles - there are more than the 3 well-known basic shapes of tall square sectioned bottle, wide rectangular bottle and small square pot.

There are two heights of the tall square bottle, there are different neck finishes on them. And I've got a few weird things - a shorter tall bottle with a slightly rectangular squareish cross section, and those much smaller bottles with the same texture as the very tall ones, in tortoiseshell and red and brown swirls.....

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Cheers, Sue (M)

"Cherish those that seek the truth; Beware of them who find it."Grimm.

With the early textured range there are the three basic shapes, sometimes with variations (like the necks) or like my amethyst bottle that is a bit skinnier than the blue one (but it is still essentially the same design with exactly the same texture pattern). The tortoiseshell and red variations you have I think are later and after Harris left Mdina so they are not contemporary with pl79's bottle, the smaller round textured vases likewise.

John

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I'm not so sure, John! We'll have to compare dimensions of the mid-height tall ones (I think perhaps they may be longer/shorter than the fully square ones - certainly it looks as if bits of the moulds could be adapted?? anyway interesting to get actual measurements. :thup: )

I'm not so sure about my short ones being post-Harris either - he did design the Mdina Tortoiseshell pattern (sort of rowns and reds and stretchy splodgy), red/orangey glass was turned to streaky reds and browns using silver nitrate.Certainly, these two I have are the only ones I've ever seen, they haven't been produced en masse, and they have the same texture as the big bottles.

I thought we thought that perhaps the moulds didn't actually stay at Mdina - you'd seen something from Mtarfa in that exact mould shape - and subsequent recent Mdina pws which have turned up with texture along the lines of the original do not actually match the original mould texture at all. But don't ask me, I'm all confuddled after just typing all that........ :pb:

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Cheers, Sue (M)

"Cherish those that seek the truth; Beware of them who find it."Grimm.